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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646381">Cliffside Memoir</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paragosm/pseuds/Paragosm'>Paragosm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amputation, Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Implications of the Tragic Future, feeling numb, remembering</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:41:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paragosm/pseuds/Paragosm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maedhros stares at his amputated wrist and thinks.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cliffside Memoir</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was sitting alone in his tent, the fires outside burning brightly. He was looking down at his arm after  removing the prosthetic on it. The scars and the marks criss crossed over the stump, and his eyes became distant and haunted. </p><p>He remembered hanging from that cliff for an eternity, certain no one was going to come. He had wanted to die so desperately then, but Moriñgotto had cursed him, cursed him and those foul lands. He cared not if when he died he was sent to the Void: even now, he wouldn’t care, as he stares at the blue banner stained with blood in the corner of his room. </p><p>Long ago, he would’ve felt like screaming, like screaming in unending agony, like punching every wall and reaching for a knife, but now? Now he was numb. He was too hurt, it had been going for so long, but now, he was numb, as numb as if he’d walked the Helcaraxë himself, and oh isn’t that comparison striking up memories and regrets.</p><p>He looks back down at his arm. Fingon always tried to have him see beauty in it. Ai, he had dearly loved his cousin. But he was dead and gone, dead and gone, like so many others. Like his uncle, like his father, like his three middle brothers, like so many others that his heart is too wrenched to feel any further. </p><p>The arm was a bitter mockery, and as he remembered the searing pain, his agonized cries, the sound of bone being sawed and blood spraying over his face and body and over Fingon’s face and body, it was even more so. It was mocking him and his inability to take care of himself, a mockery of Fingon’s memory, he should’ve killed him, he shouldn’t have saved him. It was a mockery of his strength, and he heard the whispers that spread, oh how he heard them. </p><p>Maglor always quelled those rumors that spread across the secondborn and the dwarves that it meant he had been weak, and had been caught in an obvious trap. He encouraged the ones deemed as truth, that the loss of the limb was a sign of his hardiness, his ability to survive and become a feared warrior, even more so than before. </p><p>Oh Maglor, he thought, staring down at the limb yet again, the scars across it pale and highlighted by the torches flickers, his eyes twisting it to be covered in blood yet again before his very eyes, a familiar twinge that felt like a fist being made despite his hand no longer remaining. Oh Maglor, how you are so wrong. </p><p>He is interrupted from his musing by Amrod pushing aside the tent flaps. “We ride in the morning, my brother. Prepare for an assault on Sirion.” Maedhros looked up at him. “This needn’t be a battle.” “But it will likely become one.” Amrod grinned, and his twin joined him from behind, spinning a hunting knife expertly, the two with gingery hair with those silvery streaks of Míriel’s hair that their father had seen and rejoiced over. “And you know how we are excited for a good fight, Nelyo.” </p><p>“It’ll be fun, indeed.” Amras echoed, eyes shining with that predatory gaze. Oh Celegorm, he thought, why did you do this to them? He nodded silently, and sent them away. </p><p>As he curled up under the furs in his bed, his teeth sharpened, hair braided back, he stared yet again at the amputated stump, and oh, how he missed Fingon, as he fell asleep.</p>
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